January was a rainy month! I did my back yard cutback and have been rearranging the back border. The front shows less dramatic changes, but I’ve gotten started on the roses and did about 10 lawn and leaf bags of pruning & depupping of my agaves and cactus. I am still frustrated by all of the landscape brick that’s showing on the left side of the bed. I am thinking my next attempt to cover it with a super-tough evergreen trailing plant is going to involve santolina. Fingers crossed.

Yep, I’ve tried it. It’s done all right. It seems much happier in the yucca bed in the backyard with a western exposure. I planted maybe 5 4″ pots of it along the top of the brick by the street, and it’s filled in some, but I’m not loving how much it dies back in the winter. So…time to try something else and let them duke it out.